Woods, Stuart

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Stuart Woods was born on January 9, 1938, in Manchester, Georgia. His original surname of Lee was legally changed to his stepfather’s surname in 1955. Woods graduated from the University of Georgia with a B.A. in sociology. In 1960 he moved to New York City, where he got a job in an advertising agency. At the end of the decade he moved to London, where he also worked in advertising.

After three years in London, Woods moved to Ireland, where he began writing “the novel he had been thinking about since the age of ten,” he says on his Web site. But not too far into the novel he discovered sailing, which took up much of his time. When Woods’s grandfather died, leaving Stuart just enough money for his own boat, he began to pursue sailing in earnest and has participated in several major races. He finally finished that novel, eight years after he had started it, which was published as Chiefs in 1981.

Woods now lives in Key West, Florida, on Mount Desert Island in Maine, and in New York City.